April 16, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Find out what pleases the Lord. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church; His body of which He is the Savior. Now as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5.10; 22, 23,24)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

One of the most interesting consequences, in my estimation, of sin is this “it makes people stupid.” I can speak from experience on this. Sadly, I experience “stupid” in myself each day. If I were to be dispassionate in the moment and consider it, its genesis, it metamorphosis and its coming into being, I would see the root of it is a, what Paul called, “a more highly consideration of myself than I ought.” Paul said this to the Christ Community of Faith in Rome (Romans 12.3). And while it would have been fitting to speak such a word there to Rome in general because it believed itself to be the virtual center of the world and the universe, they are words intended for the Church specifically. To believe that we are “more than we are” is, in fact, stupid. It has no basis in fact. It has no foothold in the Kingdom of God or humankind. It serves as evidence that we continue to lack wisdom in all things. For some that is a trade-off worth the consideration and effort. To be wise in a little and foolish in the rest seems to be equally to being wise in more and foolish in the rest. Yet, as mighty ones of God, it is folly to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. How high would that be? Suffice it to see in the matter of this reflection that we are “the head” and “not the body.” We dare not think for a moment that when Paul was speaking to the women in the Christian congregation of Ephesus, the men were not listening. He would have captured them in the trap which sin enjoys creating. It is the trap of “oneupmanship.” I can imagine as soon as Paul spoke to “the women,” the men were already going “yeah, listen to this and know you place!” After all, Paul was a man and a defender of the faith. Jesus was a man and was faith incarnate. So, then all men of faith should have “dominion, power and authority….over…” Over what?

Yes, the peanut gallery was primed for cheering until Paul spoke in wisdom the admonition of inevitability for the House and Household of God. “Wives submit yourselves to your husbands as you submit yourselves to Jesus Christ our Lord; for your husband is the head of the family body just as Christ is the head of the spiritual body of which you both are part and for which He came into the world to save.” Ah, the epitome of “oneupmanship” is the wisdom of Paul. Okay, men, as you are “looking down” at your wives, and all females, do not forget to look up and see from your vantage point the One who is higher. How high? Well, significant enough to first speak of the cross. This is the wisdom of Paul’s word concerning the administration of salvation. Without the cross, there would be no fulfilling salvation. We all would have been left with an empty gospel and the hopelessness of what Judaism had become: works righteousness. In Paul’s transformation on the Damascus Road and in his being mentored in healing and the teaching of the gospel, he had come to understand the “stupidity” of the faith of the Jews as his own “brothers” had interpreted it to be. If Paul had been alive in the late 20th Century, he probably would have loved the well-known acronym “KISS.” It meant and still means for those who know it: Keep It Simple, Stupid. There is a lot of wisdom in those four letters just as there is even more wisdom in the tetragrammaton YHWH, the name of Jehovah Elohim.

How the Sadducees, Pharisees, Priests, Rabbis and Kings of Israel loved to complicate the faith in “There is but One God and Father of us all.” The hope of utilizing and emphasizing “works righteousness” was to create a caste system of “haves” and “have nots.” The “haves” put on all appearances, especially by heaping on the burdens of obedience to their law, to be “without sin.” It isn’t that anyone actually believed it. By the time we move into the era of Jesus’ ministry in Israel from north to south, east to west, very few believed that they were “without sin.” Even Jesus puts forward the challenge when He intercedes for the “woman caught in adultery” and asks “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Most all of the stones dropped into the dust that Jesus had scribed three names into. The fact that the floor of the Temple marketplace was dusty was evidence enough that “the work” had not been completed and righteousness was a dirty business in the wrong hands. In the hands of Jesus, however, righteousness restored the balance. Paul would write “…for all have sinned and fallen short of the intended glory of God we are called to be.” I see no need to flesh out the “have nots.” We are familiar enough with them ourselves. We know that “save for the grace of God it is me.” It is me each and every day as I move from confession to profession and from profession to my profession (in the workplace wherever that may be.) All of that exists because there is One greater than each of us that we must look up to for wisdom, mercy, provision and protection. No matter of trust placed in us replaces the trust we must place in Him who is the Head of the Body He came into the world to save. He said it Himself, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.”

Now, let us dwell on the wisdom which Paul espoused in creating the order of righteousness, that is- the right relationship of God to humankind, humankind to God and us to all people beginning with “one another.” We are called to be in submission to Christ who Himself epitomized submission to the “head of His body: God the Father of heaven and earth.” He submitted Himself to God’s will, even to the point of “I will die believing it” and not only dying but being crucified on the cross for our sake. When we look up it is to be with the wisdom of humility, thanksgiving and praise. Such submission not only lifts up those who are “above us,” but empowers those “below us” to follow our lead. Little wonder to me, and I share in this guilt as well, that the world continues to spiral downward in its unwise and sinful effort to lift themselves us. The elevation proclaimed by those “pundits” of works righteousness is actually the degradation of those who are called to share equally within the body of Christ, the community of faith and those who are to be the receivers of the good news of the gospel of Jesus who is the Christ. If you do not believe me on this, or simply are unwilling to confess it, then why are we asking so many others to die in order to hold dear the primacy of our own lives. How many others must die so that we can keep on living? And sadly, the one life that makes all the difference in the world has already been laid down. God raised that life from death and made it wholly holy. Why? Because He has promised that all those who believe in Jesus, His greatest gift of love, and profess Him as Lord and Savior shall not taste eternal death but have everlasting life. In other words, those who are willing to live in submission to the wisdom of God, though it seems folly to the rest of the world, shall be saved.

Men, are you listening? Women, do you hear the great ministry you have been given? Let us come together on this and give praise to God from whom all blessings flow.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.